I have been doing my own thing with kettlebells for the past 12 months, I read Enter The Kettlebell (still a must read for anyone interested in kettlebells), I watched a lot of good and bad youtube videos but as I have said elsewhere on the site nothing really beats being critiqued by a professional.
So today I bit the bullet and got some professional guidance.
Andrew Read from Dragon Door Australia is a true professional, his ability to articulate the way the human body is linked together and the importance of moving it in the right way in order to achieve the desired result was better than what I can try and recreate here so you will just have to bear with me and hopefully you get something out of it.
My key takeaways from tonight’s session were:
- The swing is the base for everything
A good swing with hip drive and full body torque makes everything else easier, the clean happens naturally (after a lot of practise) and the snatch becomes a hell of a lot easier. If you are anything like me then you have probably read all of this before but evidently I found it a lot harder to put into practise then I thought. - The Get-up or Turkish Get-up is your crystal ball to your weaknesses. If there is a particular stage in the get-up where you wobble or feel weak then it obviously needs work. This exercise works the entire body and really is an amazing insight into your strengths and weaknesses.
You can break the get-up down into something like 22 parts Andrew was saying, we broke it down into 6- Kettlebell Floor to hand:
This movement of rolling onto your side is actually a lot more important then I first thought, this is the first of a series of movements you need to learn in order to walk, run, hunt, gather, live (you get it I know) I have read a little bit about circular strength, Andrew didn’t talk about circular strength per say but look it up, it is interesting and makes a lot of sense.
Another thing about this move, even lifing light weight like a 12kg or a 16kg Kettlebell you should treat it as if you are lifting the 32kg or the 48kg . If you wouldn’t use that technique with a heavy kettlebell don’t do it with a light one. Makes more sense face to face but again, I think you get it. - Up to the Elbow
Moving my arm further out from my side when laying down say to 45 degrees, just a slight change in technique made this movement a lot easier and a lot more solid. Also my hips and shoulder were independent of one another in the beginning, once I had them working as one it was a much stronger movement. - Up to the hand
Again, the whole body should be tight and this position should feel like a position of strength, you should not need to move your hand to get here. - Hips up
Your will understand when you get this right because each part of your body is in line with it’s opposite making a strong X sort of shape. I don’t think I explained that too well, I am going back for another session tomorrow night so I will try and figure out a better way to write that between now and then. - knee to hand
Bring your knee in line with your hand and your lower leg pointing in the same direction creating a line - Stand up
From the lunge push through with your back leg, don’t shuffle, this should be done in one movement.
- Kettlebell Floor to hand:
I really did start to over think things whilst doing this session and made a lot of mistakes but there was so much more to think about then I originally realised so it was important to have the brain dump of knowledge and then write this post so I really remember what I need to work on.
A few more takeaways:
- The swing is a ballistic movement, as opposed to something like the get-up which is a grinding or slow movement, it is not meant to be the same speed from start to finish, explode with the hips to generate the power and pull the kettlebell back down hard between the legs, this pulling force basically makes a light kettlebell heavy and using full power through the hips makes for a real workout not a social visit to the gym.
- The clean is just the swing with less arm movement, and the clean is actually a lot easier once I started to really explode through the hips and maintain full load on as many muscles in my body as I could. I found it hard to tense all muscles at once, when I got tired I would focus on my core and my glutes would turn off, then I would focus on my glutes and my lats would let my shoulders out again, I can see there are many hours of practise ahead but in saying that when you get it all right, an you definitely know when you do, it is amazing how much easier a press is or how much smoother your swing or clean can be.
I’ll add a video later to clear things up and so you can see each of the stages but it’s late and I’m off to bed.